Create social media "crop circles"

My sons love "The Backyardigans." The characters play pretend in their backyard, imagining that they are someone else, somewhere else. In one episode, they pretend to be two Iowa farmers trying to convince the local reporters that their corn is newsworthy. “It’s growing quickly! It’s the best crop we’ve ever had!” they plead. They even have a song and dance about how special their corn is.

But they just cannot convince the news station that their corn is worth reporting on. Do you ever feel like that? Does it ever seem as though we have information to share about agriculture, but no one cares? Or no one will listen to us? The Backyardigans struggled to get the news team out to their farm. We struggle to get readers and followers to see our social media efforts.

How did The Backyardigans solve their problem? Crop circles. They “decorated” their field with a crop circle, and suddenly the news station was interested.

I’m not suggesting you use your fancy GPS technology to make an elaborate crop circle hoax. What we need, in the agri-social media world, are metaphorical crop circles. Our content, what we post online, needs to be interesting to those outside of agriculture if we want them to notice us.

So don’t just blog about your farm. Don’t just post pictures of your cattle. Choose one or two other interests and include them in your social media efforts. If you’re a great photographer, post photography tips and beautiful non-ag photos, and then hit ‘em with photos of hogs and include information about gestation stalls. If you are an exercise fiend, alternate a fitness related post with an agriculture related post.

Your other interests and other areas of expertise…those are your crop circles.